This Paranormal Life - #215 The Disturbing Truth Behind LEPRECHAUNS

Episode Date: June 1, 2021

The term ‘ultimate cryptid’ probably calls to mind Bigfoot or even the Loch Ness Monster. But what if we told you there’s a cryptid that combines the wealth of a dragon, the magical wish-granting of a genie, and the genius intellect of the trickster god Loki? Welcome to the terrifying world of Leprechauns.BUY OFFICIAL TPL MERCHwww.thisparanormallife.com/storePatreonpatreon.com/ThisParanormalLifeYouTubeyoutube.com/thisparanormallifeTwittertwitter.com/ThisParaLifeInstagraminstagram.com/thisparanormallifeSecret Society Facebook Pagewww.facebook.com/groups/thisparanormallife/Research by Amy GrisdaleIntro music: www.purple-planet.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Can you reanimate the living? What happens if you shoot a potato with a potato gun? Answers to these questions and more on this episode of This Paranormal Life! Hello and welcome back to This Paranormal Life. This is the weekly comedy podcast where myself, Kit Greer-Molvena, and this guy across from me, Roy Parr, investigate a different paranormal tale

and try and get to the bottom of whether it's truly paranormal or not. How are you doing today, Roy? I'm doing fantastic. I just got back from a brief trip home to Northern Ireland where it was beautiful and sunny and I got incredibly sunburned, which is where I am right now. I look like a lobster boy sitting in the podcast studio. And I must be under all the bandages because you look like a mummy, sir. But I had a lovely time and I got that out of my system. Now I'm back to London, back in the dark cave, and I'm ready to explore the world of the paranormal.

It's kind of the wrong way around, isn't it? I don't think people think of getting sunburned when they think of going to Ireland on holiday. Yeah, it caught me. Well, it definitely caught me off guard because I wasn't wearing any sunscreen. That's actually pretty damn fitting, Roy, because today's story starts like all good stories do in Ireland. Ooh, a pasty white idiot was home visiting his family.

All right. Close to the bone. His sunburnt little ass sat naked on port steward strand okay it's about me just say it reddit user helpful person one was on holiday in county claire this is too good on holiday we didn't plan this by the way i like in county claire with her mother the two were having fun being typical tourists taking pictures of the rolling green hills and learning about Irish folklore.

So this is this sounds like it's a real American people abroad in which again is incredibly fitting but

but more people who haven't been to Ireland before you know visiting for the first time I'm imagining they've got an absolute bucket list of things they need to do

drink Guinness of course kiss the Blarney Stone. Isn't that a thing people do? Go see the Giant's Causeway. Sure. Capture a banshee with their bare hands. Yeah, of course. Sell it to a local freak show.

One afternoon, wandering through town, she struck up conversation with an elderly local man. Like us, helpful person one is a paranormal enthusiast and had a real interest in Irish legends. After a few minutes of chat, she dared to ask him if he believed too. The old man's eyes lit up.

He said, I do. And my father saw a leprechaun once. Clear as day he saw it. Whoa, alright. We're jumping right into it. At this point, she regrets asking. She's trying to get away. He's got her by the arm. I'm gonna take you to where I saw it. He explained that his father had grown up in a rural village deep in the Irish countryside.

Only a hundred people lived there. As a boy, he was walking home from school to the outskirts of town where his family lived. One day, he was walking along, school to the outskirts of town where his family lived one day he was walking along and just before his house he saw a wee fella sitting on the side of the road the lad was tiny this guy sounds like he needs to take a minute because he's he's like almost out of breath telling this story. You can't believe someone, everyone in this town hates this guy, by the way. He's found one tourist, one dumb ass tourist who's willing to listen to his stupid stories. And he's breathlessly trying to get it out.

I like to think he hunts them down like prey. As soon as he sees one dumb looking American with a backwards baseball cap. And socks and sandals and shorts. He sprints towards them. He said the lad was tiny. He gestured, holding his hands just two feet apart. He was

wearing tweed, a vest and all. A hat. You know, red hair. And he was sitting down making leather shoes. I think we've established on previous episodes that my Southern Irish accent is really indistinguishable from a pirate voice. Yeah, it's a very thin line. The young boy froze in his tracks, unable to believe what he was seeing.

He blinked and looked around, thinking his eyes must be playing tricks in him. But looking back to the same spot, there the little guy was. The kid got brave and started walking towards the leprechaun. When he was around three meters away, he hit an invisible barrier. Whoa! It was as if the tiny man was protected by a force field. And even though the boy was as close as he could physically get, the little man hadn't so much as glanced up.

Starting to feel a little afraid, he turned and ran towards his house, calling his sister's name. Roshin! Roshin! Get out here now, there's a leprechaun on the road! Wow, it's really like going back in time to our childhood. That's exactly what Rory sounded like as a boy. She burst outside to see, but there was nothing there. It was as if the tiny man had disappeared into thin air. Wow. Rory, how much do you know about leprechauns? I don't know why the weirdest part of this story for me is the fact that he was making leather shoes.

Is that a part of leprechaun lore that I didn't know about? It actually is uh researching this case that kind of felt like news to me there's something kind of weird and sad that this like beautiful little mystic magical entity also has to make his own shoes out of real leather because no one's selling him little shoes and he's famous for having an infinite amount of money too yeah why does he need a job because in my in my head he could be you know butt-ass naked and like click his fingers and he's got he's fully dressed with a little top hat on he's wearing yeezys he could wear whatever he wants yeah so there's something so sad about

seeing this this, magical little creature. He's just like on a doorstep just being like, come on, you little piece of shit. Goddamn. Bust a heel yesterday and then you see him and he's like, oh, oh, hello there, lad. Hiding the leather behind him.

Oh, I see you've got the Jordan Air Force Ones on you. Do they do them in a two, laddie? Do they do them in a minus three? I love that. Just like muffled, frustrated leprechaun noises. Jesus Christ. It's so weird.

It's just like, imagine bumping into Bigfoot and he's like knitting a sweater or something. Bigfoot, but he's having to like shovel snow from his driveway. Just like something so mundane. Yeah. So just I can't be bothered having to do this. So I think we all have some idea about what leprechauns are. They're usually described as miniature old men dressed in green, wearing buckled shoes and a pointed or top hat. They might also wear a leather apron or maybe smoking a pipe.

I know what you're thinking. This sounds exactly like regular old men in Ireland. It sounds like my dad. But this is a miniature version of an old man in Ireland. Got it, got it. The name seems to come from the 8th century water spirits called Lookerpan, or something like that. But eventually, a modified version of this name was given to mischievous

household fairies that haunted cellars and drank heavily. Interestingly to what you're saying, Roy, the word could also have its roots in the Irish term for a shoemaker. I'm going to butcher this, but something like Leith Brogan. Ah, okay.

So it is kind of a part of the story and the lore. Because apparently they make shoes. Because I didn't realize this, but you know the way they call like, there's a specific type

of leather shoe, the one with all the fancy holes and patterns on it, and they're called brogues. Yes. And that's what they call them all around the world. And that comes from

the Irish word for shoes. Ah, I did not know that either. Pretty interesting stuff. Don't say we don't ever teach you stuff on this podcast because that's a little nugget of truth that uh you know that's some valuable stuff right there you can whip that out at a pub next time you're out don't don't google it though because because it might well it might not be on there is the thing and stop there don't tell them a lot about this leprechaun shit that we're going to be going on to because that's how you lose a bunch of friends yeah take it from

me that's how you'll ruin a first date and let's face it the shoemaking gig has to be a front because there's no way these little rats are making that much gold just fixing shoes everybody knows a leprechaun has a pot of gold, which you can only find at the end of a rainbow. Yeah, never more, strangely. Always just a pot. And it's a pretty stacked pot, but it's never like

a dragon-style hoard of cash, you know? Yeah, that's so true. I feel like in the images, it's always like a cauldron, either. It's not like a saucepan pot. Oh, no, no, no. It's a very specific one which

maybe is like an inheritance thing everyone gets one when they come of age leprechaun age who knows i wanted to make clear uh our researcher amy has written here that quote there are other ways to squeeze cash out of the little bastards uh if you steal a leprechaun's why do we hate them already automatically angry. You call them a little rat like five minutes ago. They haven't even done anything in a story yet except exist. And we're already like these f***ing golds. They have it and I want it.

They're little teases. They flunk the golds and they play tricks with humans. Well, we haven't established any of that yet. All I know is that they make shoes and can erect. They're basically, they're like rich people in medieval times, throwing gold coins to us mere muggles and getting us to dance for them. This is like a little two-foot Jeff Bezos giving you one day of holiday as a treat

before disappearing onto a private island. Please, miniature Jeff, I need a bathroom. No, no, no, you can piss in a bottle. If you want another coin, you'll have to piss in a bottle. Why don't you Amazon Prime yourself a wee bucket to piss in? By the way, we've been walking for three days and you haven't given me one coin. Can I go?

Yes. She writes, there are other ways to squeeze cash out of these little bastards. If you steal a leprechaun's ring or amulet, you can barter with them to give you gold. Which, it's not actually bartering, Amy. I think that's theft and blackmail. It's like saying you can get a pirate's buried treasure if you tie him to a chair and waterboard him into telling you where the treasure is. A little life hack, actually. But apparently this is how it works.

A trapped leprechaun has to offer you three wishes in return for its freedom. Oh, wow. Again, more layers to this lore that I didn't realize. They're kind of genies that way. Yeah, I didn't know that. I thought it was all about the gold

at the end of the rainbow. It sounds like the three wishes is better than the gold, by the way. Yeah, I'll take that. One I thought it was all about the gold at the end of the rainbow. It sounds like the three wishes is better than the gold, by the way. Yeah, I'll take that. One of the wishes could be the f***ing gold. But before you start filling the boot of your car

with cable ties, baseball bats, and shovels looking for a leprechaun, let me warn you, don't underestimate a leprechaun. They're tricky characters that can and will deceive you given the chance.

For example, there's one story where a cornered leprechaun surrendered the location of its buried gold to a man. He didn't have a spade with him, so he left a piece of red cloth on a tree above the spot where the gold is supposed to be and let the leprechaun go. When he came back later, every single tree in the field had been draped with an identical red cloth, and he had no idea which one marked the hidden treasure. Ooh. That's the leprechaun really having a bit of a giggle as well,

because he could have just taken down the single cloth when he left. Instead, he's like, I'm really going to f*** with him. I've got nothing to do this afternoon. I've got nothing to do for the next hundred years i'm gonna with this guy so hard there's a level of petty isn't there involved it's true it reminds me a little bit like uh you know loki the god of mischief they kind of get off on a bit of uh a bit of mischief that's what it sounds like so true but it's also said that kindness goes a long way with leprechauns and they're more likely to be generous if you aren't a dick to them.

There's an old legend about a man who let a leprechaun have a ride on his horse and then returned home to find his crumbling old house filled floor to ceiling with gold. Wow. Okay. That does sound a little bit like a money laundering kind of explanation. Yeah, I gave a leprechaun a lift. Nah, that's how I got my fortune, yeah. So that's interesting to know that, you know, your automatic approach shouldn't,

even though they are tricksy little mischievous fairy people, don't go straight to violence. Don't go straight to hog tying them and demanding things. There's a way to win them over and gain their favor. But how do you go about it? Do you go up and you're like, hey, toss me a couple of coins of gold. He's like, what? I don't owe you shit. Why are you talking to me? Yeah. This person got lucky because he encountered the leprechaun in a situation where the leprechaun required something from him. And that's the way to do it you need to find a leprechaun that is being uh bitten by a

wolves ripped apart or is like in a rainstorm or something that you can offer them the hand a little branch of a friendship you know yeah you yeah actually you're onto something here if you release wolves in the vicinity of a leprechaun yeah and then say you will control the wolves only if they uh this is back to blackmail you need to gaslight a leprechaun into giving you its gold but again i mean this comes back to our jeff bezos analogy i mean it's very similar jeff bezos has the power to grant uh untold riches upon any man woman or child he meets yeah now if you kidnap jeff bezos and force him to give you uh his stuff i'm not saying he's a trickster but it might not go that well for you might end up in jail very true so you kind of have to rely on jeff bezos wanting something from you you need

to wait until he's choking on a piece of steak at a fancy restaurant and you can rush over and give him the Heimlich maneuver and save his life. And then he's like, oh, thank you so much. Here's a pot of gold. Here's a pot of Amazon stock. Right. My friend, thank you for saving my life. In terms of the specifics of finding a leprechaun out in the wild, I didn't expect this. a leprechaun out in the wild uh i didn't expect this apparently what you're listening out for is the the tiny tapping of a tiny cobbler's hammer on a shoe the shoe thing again if you

hear one of those nearby there's a leprechaun working on some shoes i mean it makes sense like how else are you going to hear them you hear, listen into the distance and hear like a little ta-ta, ta-ta, ta-ta, ta-ta. Yeah, or a little heels on a cobblestone path or something, yeah. Wow, I didn't know the shoe thing was such a huge part of it. Apparently. So we've talked a little bit about who they are,

what they do, what they want in life. I started wondering if there was anything in terms of actual physical evidence we can use to prove if leprechauns are real. Well, that's it. You know, on this podcast, we love to talk about these wild stories. We did dragons not too long ago, another mythological fantasy creature. But at the end of the day, you need the stories. You need the stories that happened in the 21st century and that are caught on camera with an iPhone. Well, let's not get it. I don't know if I can do 21st century.

I was 16th, my friend. You're so right, because without footage, it's fiction. In my research, I came across this video from 1990 of a man called PJ O'Hare, who claims to be in possession of some God-tier evidence. You're never going to believe why I'm on this mountain overlooking Collingford in County Live. And come to think of it, I find it hard to believe myself because I'm told that on this mountain,

the little people really exist. In fact, this man, Kevin Woods, who's the chairman of the Collingford Tourism Association, firmly believes that there are little people in these mountains. So much so that he's having a leprechaun hunt on Easter Sunday. Good Lord. But before we talk to him, let's meet the man who claims to have met the people who have met the fairies.

That man is PJ O'Hare, a Carlingford publican who has in his possession the clothes of a leprechaun. Holy shit! I said it was God, dear. People, we're looking about a whole little leprechaun suit. He's showing off here. Bones! Leprechaun bones! He's got the skeleton and clothes of a f***ing leprechaun.

It looks like he ate it like a KFC bucket. So I went along with him and when we went over to a place called the Wishing Well, on the ground we found these three pieces, the hat and the tunic and the trousers, just scattered as if they'd been discarded suddenly and haphazardly. And I'm also meant to tell you that there were coins with the suit. There were coins laying on the ground, four coins. The contact Brendan has with this authority, this Professor Morne or Mr. Morne,

is that the story has happened in other parts of Ireland where a leprechaun has been attacked by a demon. Oh! He took a winding route to get to that conclusion. Jesus! The leprechaun then can throw off his clothes and if you ever saw the film The Incredible Hulk... What is happening right now? He can expand himself into a figure now Now, as big possibly as a sheep

or a ram standing on his hind legs or a greyhound standing on his hind legs. Can we have a closer look? I'm sorry. This is the wildest video we have ever played

on this podcast before. So his clothes were discarded because he turned into the Hulk. So these people encountered a leprechaun demon

showdown. Oh my God, there's a drawing. They've done a little drawing of him. Do you really believe in leprechauns? Yes.

I believe that PJ has found the suit and bones and sovereigns on the mountain. And I believe some of the stories that I've heard about leprechauns.

You're listening to a man who looks overwhelmingly like a leprechaun, by the way. They all look like leprechauns. That're listening to a man who looks overwhelmingly like a leprechaun, by the way. They all look like leprechauns. That's the f***ing twist. That's the dirty secret. You're like a Christmas elf.

I'm sorry. There's so much happening. I need to pause that. Yeah, this is a hard... The insanity of this video is very hard to get across in audio form. There's a poster

they're showing here for the Easter Sunday leprechaun hunt with diagrams of leprechauns and £4,000 in bounties available.

It's like f***ing Red Dead. They've got bounties on their heads. Wow. So, Rory, there's a close-up

of the skeletal remains of this leprechaun. This is the one from the video yeah for pj o'hare so that's one thing i was gonna say is you know when he pointed out the bones uh in the case right by the clothes i thought they some of them looked a little large right i thought it was it was a little bit big um and yes here we do have bones laid out on a table, I should say, to completely form a little person's body.

I'm not a doctor, but I feel like some of these, some of these aren't being used for what they should have been. Right, they're not on the right plate, because they've been laid out as if it's the full skeleton you'd get of a dinosaur in a museum where it's all laid out proportionally but some of these bones don't add up no so for example the leg bones uh is just one bone so this leprechaun would have no knees or feet it's just one large bone his i know all the better for fighting demons

his shoulders his shoulder bones or collarbones i don't know what they are look like american football shoulder pads and then um the rest of his arm is again one bone no elbow no bends no hands or fingers it's wild figure you know again this is a this is a mythological creature i don't know it's genetic makeup it's skeletal makeup but i can see how these could be bones from another creature okay reorganized into the shape of a little person i do appreciate that they've put it on a table and put uh coins next to it just so you get the scope down. Yeah, to complete the image, yeah. But then to make it extra confusing, they've placed it right by what looks like novelty tiny bottles of Guinness.

Sure. So it also kind of looks massive in a weird way. Right, right. Like we can tell that it is small, but it's a confusing image. Why would you do that? Wow. Because that would be the size of Guinness the little guy would drink, I guess. Are these coins the coins that were found with the creature?

I actually don't know. It probably is. Because I've never seen... I don't know what that is. It's got a picture of a horse on it, and they look pretty worn. I don't know any coin that has a picture of a horse on it. Well, now you mention it, let me have a look.

Do you remember the old currency of Ireland, like punt? No, not really. Before the euro. Ireland had its own currency, and I think it was punts. And they were really. Before the euro. Ireland had its own currency, and I think it was punts. And they were pretty cool. All the coins had animals on them. They had horses and stags and stuff.

Maybe that's what it is then. From mythology. So I don't know if that's what that is, but it does look a bit like the old coins. Money is so goddamn boring these days. Yeah. It really went downhill. I wish currency and coins still looked like

pirate gold yeah like all misshapen and shit like golden doubloons that would have been great i want to bite every coin i get yeah to test it yeah you're so right i would like some gnarled massive gold coins i want them novelty size get. Yeah, ones that you could like if you went to a bar you could flick it onto the countertop and that would cover your drinks for the night.

Oh yeah, I would f***ing settle for it. A pipe with a skull on it and it hits like and they're like of course sir and they give you four bottles of rum.

I think I just want pirate money now is what I'm thinking of. I just want to be a pirate. Yeah, now that about it i want to ship and sail the world on the seven seas scurvy and have my teeth fall out bro i would settle for we were watching john wick three last night and john wick does a lot of that doesn't he for reason, assassins pay for everything with gold coins. So I've never seen a single John Wick movie. I know I've had multiple people tell me that I would love it,

but I've just never, I've never seen it. Weirdly, there are always movies that are available to watch on flights. Yeah. But it's always John Wick 2 and 3. They never have John Wick 1. So I've never seen the first one and i can't watch the second so you can i'll be honest you can not a lot of story it's like i just told you the shit about the coins that's all you really needed to know going into number two like i think the entire

premise of the three movies and him killing about 2 000 people is uh someone kicked his dog or something like that. Yeah. Well, we've talked about, you know, we're always looking at ways to expand the Patreon and do cool things for the listeners of the show. And that was one thing I think we talked about at one point was like how much would it cost to get like a golden coin made

for the paranormal commune? That's like a token that would be like on a reward tier, like 50 bucks or something. You sign up, you get your golden coin in the mail. And then that coin grants you access to the paranormal commune when it's finished completion, you know, when it's fully built, you can show up one day and hand over that coin. And the person at the desk will be like welcome welcome home you're so right i want i want to next live show if we're selling merchandise or something like that i don't want anyone to have to like oh get out their apple pay or pay using their watch or oh get out like a

little uh 20 pound note out of their wallet yeah like a nerd i want them to look us straight in the eyes and go for the brotherhood and then they place a single large gold coin slide it across the table to us time for the egg harvest slide it across and i go that's actually quite a lot of value do you have any change i don't have change for one doubloon a solid gold coin yeah or you know it'll be cool you know it'd be a cool thing to do on the sorry we're getting really sidetracked here you know it'd be a cool thing to do on the patreon all right if on a certain tier you realize that when you just air these things publicly people are gonna really like thousands and thousands of listeners we then have to do it so speak carefully what what about uh on a certain it would have to be a high level tier

but it'd be a ring right and if you with with some cool shit carved on it and if you wear the ring that gets you like uh free access to any of the live shows you have to pay for a ticket yeah you can like flash the ring at the door and you just get in for free that would be cool it's like uh i don't my american sports knowledge is not good. What are the big rings they have? Super Bowl rings. Super Bowl rings. I want something that size. It doesn't have to be diamonds, but you know.

I was thinking something a little bit more discreet with something in Latin. No, no, no. But you want it to be like a king's ring. Oh, yeah. People, the bouncer would have to kiss on the way in. Yeah. Lots of ideas. Lots of ideas is what we're saying.

Interesting. Well, if you make Super Bowl-style rings, get in touch. We could put in an order. Where the f*** were we? A demon fought a leprechaun? Oh, yeah. And the leprechaun turned into the Incredible Hulk?

I think my brain was so eager to move forward that we just completely moved past it yeah the the hypothesis being thrown out here by this gentleman is that a leprechaun fought a demon and in the process burst into ash he was seeming to imply and yet there were bones at the site i don't know it sounded like it would transform into a werewolf or something scare away the demon the demon. It doesn't all quite add up. I'm not going to lie. This discovery by PJ O'Hare whipped up leprechaun fever in the town. Rory, you know how this goes.

A cryptid comes to visit a small town. You got about 30 minutes until you've got a manhunt on your hands. Locals with guns, news reporters, everyone flooding in. Shortly after the bones and clothes were discovered, the townspeople participated in a mass leprechaun hunt that sadly turned up exactly zero leprechauns. But it has now become an annual family tradition at 2pm on one sunday every march in this specific location in this town yes because as you said you know we both grew up in ireland and leprechaun hunting wasn't necessarily a any part of my childhood yeah you know yeah you know northern ireland and southern

ireland they are two different beasts you know it's very true very true not just like the modern like the yeah they're two different countries and all that. But like even culturally, I feel like there's different folklore, different myths, isn't there? Not a lot of leprechaun chat north of the border. Yeah. Well, we did. We did both go to the same school growing up. And I think we've mentioned on this podcast before we had a class called Heritage Class. And we cannot stress this story enough. Part of the exam for heritage class was i think one of the questions if you could call it a question was draw a mermaid

we were graded on how successfully in detail you've ever wondered why we're such dumb mother we were at school drawing mermaids while you guys were learning algebra i don't know how you grade an exam like this if that was sent off to a board you forgot the gills you fail but um it was a pretty sure i even drew a leprechaun at one point i really feel in this paranormal life we've got a unique insight into the human mind. More than most people, we've seen how at the first sign of something weird happening, the natural response of human beings is to form a bloodthirsty mob to hunt the beast down. Yeah, a beast is a very dramatic word to use. And this isn't the only supposed first-hand evidence of real leprechauns.

Self-proclaimed leprechaun whisperer Kevin Woods saw his first leprechauns in 2003, spotting a trio of them on a rock on a mountainside. He didn't manage to get a picture, but says that he came across a stash of gold coins, hello, at the bottom of a stone wall nearby. stash of gold coins, hello, at the bottom of a stone wall nearby. This was just the beginning of his story. He claims that holding the coins opened up a magical line of communication between him and Carrig, the elder of the leprechauns. Wow. Carrig told Kevin there were only 236 leprechauns left in Ireland and that they needed his help. Carrick told Kevin where to find the entrance to the secret cavern the leprechauns retreated to. He dug down to it and built a set of 12 concrete steps so he can access them any time day or night. In 2009, he even managed to make leprechauns a protected species under the European Habitats Directive.

Are you kidding me? I'm not kidding. Wow. Talking about his relationship with them, Kevin has stated, I can communicate with them whenever I wish. I have the gift. Leprechauns are spirits who can take the form of whatever we wish them to be. In my case, I see them as small men, about 12 to 14 inches in height.

All right, so it's all the way most people see leprechauns. They wear a suit in the, sorry, let me finish. They wear a suit in a traditional green color. It has gold buckles and a belt fastener. But that's only because I have the gift. Pretty fascinating idea though, don't you think? Leprechauns are paranormal beings that can take any shape they want, but they choose to appear as elves in suits.

Yeah, that's, I mean, I don't really know why. Is there like a justification behind that? Well, I think we've come across this kind of thing before. This idea of aliens come to Earth and the reason they all have big bulbous heads and big eyes and they're gray is because that's what we think they look like so they appear to us the way we expect them to right it probably goes back to the bible i'm sure like god or something works like that you know this thing of like angels look just look like people with wings because if you saw their true form, your head would fucking explode. Dude, have you seen the drawings of like, like properly descript

the original angel form in the Bible? I don't think so. It's the wildest thing. I think like based on like, I don't know how, I don't know what it is, but like early descriptions

of what an angel looks like. Like totally accurate depictions of an angel. Right. You will not believe yeah it's not a beautiful maiden in a white dress and and wings it's not even a human no i shouldn't be googling the word words angel true form that's like you after you match with someone on tinder surely it can be this is a biblically accurate angel no f**k off you have to hold yeah there's so much going on there's no way it's the biblically accurate this is the plot of akira

or something this is a mutant a nuclear mutant sent back from the future with some sort of gene splicing technology it's it looks like it looks like the rings of halo covered in thousands of eyes with an antichrist child at the middle emanating radioactive energy i don't know what like maybe it's like an early iteration before it was kind of adapted and changed but um i love that though like i because it's if doesn't it feel more realistic that these supernatural beings are would be much stranger than we can imagine i i guess the only interesting part is like as you said with aliens if they do appear in that form because that's what humans think aliens will look like where is the origin of that form yeah even you, you know, the depictions

of aliens in movies with the bug eyes and the big heads and stuff, was that just something dreamt up or did that have its origin somewhere, you know? Doesn't it feel like a pretty natural conclusion? So we came from Homo erectus, cave people and Neanderthals, and we were we used to be muscly hairy short and we kind of gotten taller skinnier hairless and bigger heads and so the idea is like if we keep going we'll eventually be totally smooth skinny massive heads and massive eyes okay i can see that yeah yeah it's it's the the future of evolution. So this guy, Kevin, says, the leprechauns have excavated underground tunnels the breadth of the country,

and he knows now where they mine their gold. Apparently, currently, Avoca in County Wicklow. Don't know if I'm saying that right. And the Glens of Antrim. This is my ancestral homeland. I could definitely picture leprechaun gold mines in the Glens of Antrim. This is my ancestral homeland. Wow. I could definitely picture leprechaun gold mines in the Glens of Antrim. Yeah, yeah.

He guards these coins with his life. As he says, without them, he'll lose his gift of leprechaun communication. He says they're being kept, quote, in a place that won't be revealed until I die. And if you want to go to his underground leprechaun mine that he built steps to, it's only seven euro per child and three euro fifty per adult. It's cheaper for an adult?

Yeah, apparently. What? I guess it's a sliding scale because it's a place for small people. I don't know. So these are some of the more recent stories. But as you can probably guess, stories involving leprechauns go way back. And here's one from August 1908 in a newspaper called the Dairy Journal

with the headline, very straightforward here, Leprechaun Caught. Great sensation has been caused in the town by the report that the leprechaun, which several children stated they had seen during the past two months, has been captured. Two policemen found a creature of dwarfish proportions in a wood near the town and brought the little man to Mullingar Workhouse, where he is now an inmate. He eats greedily, but all attempts to interview him have failed, his only reply being a peculiar sound between a growl and a squeal the inmates regard him with interest mixed with awe once they captured the beast it turned out he actually wasn't that short he was over four feet tall so he's just a short man

could still be a leprechaun though could still be what did you say this was 1908 oh boy we're talking about the years of ignorance my friends one reporter from this newspaper was actually given special access to interview the strange creature he took my proffered hand and shook it lightly between his thin fingers he appears between 30 and 40 years of age, and continuous conversation was impossible with him. After a few words, he broke into gibberish, ejaculating sounds, etc. Mignon, mignon, oh no no. One minute his face was all smiles, the next his expression was ludicrously solemn. Asked if he knew where his gold was hid, as the leprechaun is supposed to know, he answered only with the ejaculations above. There's only a record as the leprechaun is supposed to know he answered only with the

ejaculations above there's only a record of the leprechaun ever saying two sentences uh goodbye safe home which he said to the reporter we just heard from and uh and also my mammy in tullamore infirmary meaning I guess his mom is in hospital in Tullamore this feels so wrong uh and it wasn't long until a traveling freak show struck a deal to get the leprechaun in their show and the last mention of him in the newspaper was the Irish leprechaun is now attracting thousands of visitors in the Glasgow museum. Last night, there was a long queue waiting in mission to see him. That poor bastard. That is where the trail goes cold,

and we don't know the fate of the probable human being, maybe leprechaun, of 1908. Good lord. That was a real whirlwind of ignorance,'t it i i that is baffling that no one had considered any other option there's something has gone very wrong when a policeman is yelling at a man of any size in a cell where's the gold something's gone very wrong for you to get that into that situation. There's something I find so funny about how he is speaking complete gibberish. He cannot be interviewed, cannot communicate.

But then when the guy leaves, he goes, goodbye, safe home. I love that. Absolute gibberish for 45 minutes and then cheers me and have a good one. What a rude world where the owner of a freak show can just buy a human from a prison. Where does he get the authority? I can't believe they took him to a workhouse as well.

As if like, right, you better speak up or you've got to work in a factory now. Why? I didn't do anything wrong. You may be a leprechaun. You may not be a leprechaun.

Either way, you're making me some f***ing shoes. Now, obviously, there's a heavy association between leprechauns and Ireland, but there have been sightings of little green men around the world. There's a story from the Swedish province of Skåne in January 1931. 24-year-old farmhand Helge Eriksson

was on his way home from his friend's house when he saw 12 tiny men walking towards him. You can see where this is going. Yeah. They passed him within meters and he got a really good look at them. They marched like a little army and were dressed in green clothes and hats. Their outfits appeared to be one-piece garments like a onesie. Helga described their facial expressions as hard and cruel.

They all had beards and left a strong smell behind long after they marched into the darkness. Well, that's a wild story. Because for a lot of different reasons, you know, this isn't a glimpse in the darkness of a solemn figure. This is 12 of them. She's got a good enough look at these little guys

to see the expressions on their faces. Yep. And one place that seems to get an inordinate amount of leprechaun sightings is America, of all places. A Pennsylvania police chief named Mike reported hitting one with his service vehicle. Whoa! He maintains that a small, bald, dirty man dressed in ragged clothes, approximately two feet tall, ran out in front of his cruiser and there was no time to stop. He jumped out of the car to make sure the little guy was okay. This is a child, by the way. There's no way this isn't a child.

He hit a child with a cop car. He jumped out to make sure the little guy was okay the leprechaun let out a hysterical shriek and hopped to his feet and disappeared into the grass on the other side of the road it's not hysterical if you like saying something's hysterical is saying it's an over reaction yeah you hit him with your cruiser it's like he whined like a f***ing baby and ran into the woods. No, you almost killed him. He has broken legs. Chief Mike was very disturbed by the encounter. Unfortunately, it was only a few weeks before St. Patrick's Day

and the guys in the bullpen just laughed at his story. Yeah, you got to wait till Christmas to tell that one. As a joke, one of the other officers left a dollar store shamrock hat on the chief's doorstep with a note reading, I'm coming for you, Mikey. Apparently, when he discovered the note, he started crying and told his family he wanted to quit the force. Oh, that's sad. He insists to this day what he hit was a leprechaun. You got to you got to admire that level of dedication.

You know, this is someone who, whether or not we believe the events truly did happen, they believe wholeheartedly that it did happen. And, you know, you have that a lot in the paranormal. Something that seems so improbable, but people will swear by it. They'll swear by their testimonies, even if it means losing their jobs, their friends, their family. And ultimately, it can be quite a sad thing. Like in this case, you know, it's a funny story.

But this poor guy who, yeah, like is not a cop anymore, probably doesn't hang out with his friends anymore. Yeah. It's a blessing every day when I hop into a car that I don't hit a leprechaun. Because all it takes is a paranormal experience like that. And your life is over. I think it's over for good. I think you said it best in a recent podcast, something to the effect of if I saw a dog wearing Yeezys, I'm not telling anyone. I'm not going to say a peep. Yeah, no. And as he said in the episode, if I do,

I'm going to leave out the Yeezys part. like there's certain stories you that don't translate you can't tell them there's no point take them to the grave take it take it to the deathbed that's fine yeah and and maybe maybe take them past the deathbed because the last thing a family wants is their last grandfather's words to just be like, I never told you this, but I hit a leprechaun with my police car. Because what they were hoping you were going to say was, I buried treasure in the backyard. Right. I want you to dig it up before, you know, anyone forgets. Yeah. Even when you say the word leprechaun, they're hoping you have some gold somewhere.

You don't want to drag the child in closer and say and he's coming back for you mikey jr slides a gun under the blanket i need you to finish what i started uh no granddad no or would you probably tell him yes and then when he passes away just like, just slide the gun back under the blanket, maybe. How did Granddad get a gun into a hospital? He's wearing a gown and that's it. He doesn't have anything. And that brings us to perhaps the most famous leprechaun sighting of all time, Rory. This happened in Crichton, Alabama in 2006.

There shouldn't be a leprechaun in Creighton, Alabama. Let's just get that out of the way. You know, as someone who has a family and a life, both in America and in Ireland, I would say people in America go even harder when it comes to the celebration of Irish heritage. I mean, my family were from Savannah, Georgia, and they have huge St. Patrick's Day parades that take over the entire town for days. Yeah.

It's enormous. I don't know if Americans or people from other countries know this. They think St. Patrick's Day, big Irish thing. All Irish politicians go to America for St. Patrick's Day, big Irish thing. All Irish politicians go to America for St. Patrick's Day. Is that true? It's a tradition, yeah, that Irish politicians go to the New York parade. They get invited. I know they do.

The thing here in Ireland is you just get absolutely battered. From nine in the morning, you have a pint and you just drink throughout the whole day. That's kind of it. And there's a couple things. I think at the town hall, they serve Guinness pie or something, you know, like it'll be little things like that and maybe a couple costumes and stuff. But yeah, in America, they go hard. And they're obviously a huge Irish community over in the States as well.

So I'm not surprised that some of that that legend and lore has carried over to the States. This is still going to surprise you i feel okay the local press had been receiving calls for days about a leprechaun in town as it was close to st patrick's day eventually a reporter went to interview some local witnesses and the whole thing kind of snowballed well just in time for st patrick's day crowds are coming by the dozens to get an up-close view at what some say is a piece of Irish folklore. Some people in the Crichton area of Mobile say a leprechaun is taking up residence in their neighborhood. A leprechaun.

NBC 15's Brian Johnson has more. Curiosity leads to large crowds in Mobile's Crichton community. Many of you bring binoculars, camcorders, even camera phones to take pictures. To me, it look like a leprechaun to me. I got to do a little bit of treat. Who else in the leprechaun say yeah? Eyewitnesses say the leprechaun only comes out at night.

If you shine a light in its direction, it suddenly disappears. This amateur sketch resembles what many of you say the leprechaun looks like. Others find it hard to believe and have come up with their own theories and explanations for the image. My theory is it's casting a shadow from the other limb. Could be a crackhead that got hold to the wrong stuff. And it told him to get up in a tree and play a leprechaun. We're going to get down to the bottom stuff and told him to get up in a tree and play a leprechaun. We'll get out to the bottom of this. Yeah, stay on there, guy.

Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid, man. This guy helping to direct traffic says he's prepared for his encounter with the leprechaun. He's dressed as a soldier. This water's all spells right here. This is a special leprechaun flute which has been passed down from thousands of years ago from my great-great-grandfather. Why does he have that?

I just came to help out. Others just came to get money. I need your Leprechaun flute. My hope is a pile of gold may be buried under this tree. I'm going to run a backhoe and uproot that tree. I want to know where the gold at. I want the gold. Give me the gold.

I want the gold. This is wild this is Brian Johnson NBC 15 News that was that all happened so fast this is an

ancient leprechaun flute passed down from my great great great grandfather that man looked like a

marine he was dressed head to toe in like camo armor by the way the top comment is, quote,

this is a special leprechaun flute passed down from thousands of years. He's holding a scaffolding adapter. It turns into like a metal pipe. There's no way it makes noise. Wow, at no point did they even attempt to show a picture of it

or a video of whatever the thing was that people were claiming was a leprechaun there were like there were crowds of people around it and police sketchings and drawings and at no point did they even show what the thing was and yet one of the guys goes who's seen a leprechaun say yeah yeah also one woman said she thinks it's a crackhead who got hold of, quote, the wrong stuff. But when you saw the tree that the leprechaun is allegedly up at the end, it's not a big tree.

If it was a fully grown man hanging from the tree like a sloth, you would know. I don't understand how it's one of those two things. A crackhead who got hold of the wrong stuff and told him to be a leprechaun. Incredible. Wow. You're right. I was surprised by that. There was another sighting in America.

This just goes to show how when leprechauns travel, they can get up to no good. This was a piece in Ohio about a leprechaun on a crime spree. Headline, gas station clerk says robber looked like a leprechaun. 19-year-old clerk said he was held up by a short man with a wrinkly face and pointy ears. The robber ran out of the store with a 24 pack of beer, and then the clerk

gave chase. The robber then pulled out a handgun, and a physical altercation ensued before the robber fled with a group in a car. This is thev image of the leprechaun that's a man that's a full-grown man now just in jeans and a jacket stealing a 24 pack of beer is something a leprechaun might do but i do feel that the i agree the man-like imagery here and the fact that he had a gun and a getaway car. He also doesn't look very small.

He looks like a fully grown man. He looks hunched over is about it. Lastly, Rory, I know we do have to get, and I know at the end of the podcast, we do have to get down to conclusions, but just firstly, right off the bat, I thought we could look at practical advice to our listeners that if they do want to get to that pot of gold, if they do want to get something out of a leprechaun sighting, our researcher, Amy, has taken the liberty of finding a couple of pretty interesting leprechaun trap ideas.

Oh, OK. So we got two here. Let me know what you think of these. We'll go with number one. All right. So trap number one here, it is it's a box with a you know it's it's the basic generic cartoon trap a box held up by a stick with a piece of rope on the uh on the stick to pull away when the creature is close a classic but at the bottom leading into

the box is a cardboard cut out of a rainbow cotton balls to illustrate clouds and gold coins this seems a little bit counter intuitive because what you're trying to trap the leprechaun with is everything that a leprechaun already has this is kind of strange get it does he need not need to collect coins i don't know know. Is he like Sonic the Hedgehog? Well, no, I don't. I have no idea how we get their wealth. But aside from the story we just heard, we don't really hear about leprechauns robbing people or stealing things. I question the strength of this trap. I feel like someone even small would be able to break out of that bad boy. Okay, well, if you didn't like that one, you're not going to like this one either. This one is, by the way, from MarthaStewart.com.

Why is she getting involved? This seems just offensive. This is just... This is just... I hate this. I hate this. This is a pint glass with a tiny ladder leading up to the top of it.

And inside the glass are some gold coins the idea being i assume that he would climb up and then a bit like a spider would not be able to negotiate slippy insides right and get stuck in this glass i don't know why they think a leprechaun is the size of a beetle i think it's pretty well established that they're little men. So I don't think this is necessarily practical. You're getting weirdly angry at this for someone who's allegedly not a leprechaun. I am getting angry at this.

I feel like the very thought of trapping a leprechaun is already going to put you on their bad side. Well, that is true. I feel like if you're going to go to the lengths to piss them off and risk the wrath of the leprechaun, the trap you should be using is a f***ing bear trap. So when they stand in it, their little legs are taken off their little body.

It should be a kind of World War II trenches trap for catching rats, which is a piece of cheese on the end of a bayonet. And as soon as he reaches for it, you shoot them. Exactly. I really love that in this one that you hit, there's a sign that says, do not climb. This is apparently appealing to the mischievous instincts of the leprechaun.

To be fair, I wanted to climb a little bit after seeing that sign. Rory, we've looked at a pretty goddamn wide range of evidence today from supposed artifacts themselves, the clothes, the bones. We have eyewitness testimony. We have people who claim to be able to communicate to this day with the leprechauns,

giving us their physical location through to sightings arguably all over the world from Sweden to America. What are you thinking? This is such a fun story because as I said, even when we looked into dragons, similar creature, mythological, has years and years of lore behind them. Sure. There weren't that many real life sightings. There weren't that many people convinced that they had seen or experienced the dragon. Whereas with leprechauns, I had no idea that there were this many people convinced that they had either seen a leprechaun or had the gold coins from a leprechaun or the clothes or bones of a leprechaun. There was a lot more real world experience with this creature, which is

really fascinating. I didn't think that was going to be the case. I thought it was all going to be like Irish folklore and things that happened centuries and centuries ago. It paints a pretty realistic picture of how Irish people live alongside the paranormal. You know, you know, we're skeptics in a lot of ways. We give a lot of cases double no's but at the end of the day we wouldn't cover these things if we didn't think they were worth talking about yeah and i think anyone who's got irish family or are irish themselves they'll know that there's someone in their family at least one person who genuinely believes in all this shit swears by it you know

like you know even in my family there's family curses family omens yo yeah yeah someone who's heard the cry of the banshee or seen the doulahan on a moonlit night yeah it is really interesting i guess the thing with the leprechaun is maybe it's a unique case because even though it is uh you know a magical mythological entity it's a very realistic one you know the stories that we heard aren't really from people who saw it flying across the sky on a magic cloud or anything like that at its heart it's just a very small human and there are you know varying degrees as like magic gold and rainbows and touching pots to be able to communicate with the leprechaun elder. There's very dramatic versions of that, but you know, at its heart,

it is just a small person. So you can see how people could be convinced in certain circumstances that that's what they saw and that's what they witnessed. At the of uh throwing any amount of science into this uh episode and any kind of common sense there was a while back researchers who look at like human history and stuff for a long time they kind of thought it all happened pretty linearly like i said before we had neanderthals um homo erectus all these things but it was like one after the other and then we're the most recent one but more recently they start to now think that actually the different the different types of humans throughout history actually lived a lot more alongside than we thought yeah in asia and those kind of areas they find evidence of a type of early human called denisovans and they were kicking

about till about 30 000 years ago so they were around for a long time alongside us i mean we've been around for a quarter million years wow and they were humans that were about three to four feet tall and hung out in caves and did all kind of the same things we did um that's crazy different type of human wow they they there were little people it's wild a whole race of little people you know so it's very interesting and intriguing to think what if these things are just like baked into our psychology yeah from evolution that we live alongside little people yeah yeah i mean i can see it um i think the important distinction here is we're talking about a very specific version of that which is the much more fantastical gold coin magic rainbows fairy people with the pointy ears and sometimes a handgun yeah yeah i i

i'm not defending that um in conclusion at the end of every episode we do have to decide whether our given case is truly paranormal or not what What are you saying today, Rory? Great episode. Loved it. Lots of real world cases and some fantastic evidence, which I love. But I am missing that crucial bit, that crucial push for me to swap over to the side of this being a real world creature or a entity that does in fact exist. So I'm going to say no this week for me. Ooh, baby, it was a close one,

but I think I'll have to go double no as well. I'll be honest with you. I didn't think leprechauns... It was going to be a toss up. It was going to be that much of even, yeah, a close call. You know, I'd like to go to this annual leprechaun hunt. So would I.

I want to go. With night vision goggles and a hunting knife. I want to go to that well the guy has built. You go down the steps. It's so cheap for adults. So that would be great. That's true. Wow.

What a case. And right off the bat, thank you so much to Amy Grisdale for researching this. Hope you guys enjoyed it. If you've encountered leprechauns in your own life, please let us know how you got on. You should have let us know a lot earlier.

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We will see you next Tuesday. Remember to enjoy yourself and of course, storm the charts. We'll see you back here on Tuesday for a brand new paranormal tale. Remember to live fast, investigate, and die young, baby! Thank you.